Robots Reveal: Blitz, Rayker, Invader

by WR_Tofsla - 31.08.2018

In War Robots, everything should serve a purpose. Every robot or weapon should play some specific role or fill the niche that was previously lacking.

Lock-down effect was our answer to extreme mobility, and this time we introduce a countermeasure to burst damage. Burst builds are aimed at destroying the enemy quickly and they are extremely popular today, especially in higher leagues. So we aimed to carve more space for pilots preferring more methodical styles of fighting and make bursters less dominant.

Background

We imagine Invader, Blitz and Rayker pilots as wildcards, observant equalizers invading the battlefield when you expect them the less to tip the scale somewhere unexpected. They belong to no country, no army, but they freely take fights they see challenging and interesting enough.

What makes these robots so good at turning tides? An entirely new mechanic we called Suppression.

What is Suppression?

Robot affected by Suppression deals much less damage from all weapons, which effectively removes it from the fight for a short duration. This is a great tool to create openings for your team. Doesn't matter who you face — with the right timing, you can render anyone powerless.

What makes Suppression strong?

Suppression is a powerful counter against burst builds like Orkan Haechi or Shocktrain Spectre. The idea is simple: suppress the thing before it shoots. You got to find the right time and the right target — but once you nail it down, your whole team will praise you as a hero.

(Even if they don't mention this out loud, you have a full right to consider yourself as one)

On all three robots, the focus is shifted from pure firepower to the ability that allows team-wide tide-turning. However, that doesn't mean that Blitz, Rayker and Invader aren't strong duelists. By suppressing enemies, you create short periods, when you are definitely stronger than your opponent. Utilize these power peaks wisely — here lies the biggest outplaying potential.

How to use Blitz, Rayker and Invader?

These robots are based around the same mechanic — Suppression — and yet they have very different fighting patterns. You can pick the one you see more interesting for you and roll from there.

Invader is a disruptive brawler. It can jump and (almost like Mercury) plummet right on the enemies' heads, suppressing everyone it the hitting zone.

If you manage to land on multiple robots, this alone can win you an entire fight. Just make sure your team is here ready to capitalize on your initiation.

Blitz is a knife-fighter too, but instead of strong initiation, it is focused on dueling. Blitzes' ability gives it a short speed burst (to close the distance), activates a small Aegis shield (to soak in the damage you're definitely going to attract) and then emits series of wide energy arcs that suppress everything on your way.

Landing this form of Suppression on multiple enemies is much harder, but still doable. This is not your core goal on Blitz though: even isolating a single enemy is good for you. You alone is usually enough to ensure it's toast.

Finally, Rayker. Rayker is a mid-range sharpshooter. This robot's suppressor beam affects only one target per hit but also has the longest range and stores multiple charges. With it, you can support teammates from the safe distance or disable bigger threats from afar before you close the distance. In our playtests, both approaches worked great.

How to fight against them?

Anything built for a sustained fight can become a major problem for Invader, Rayker and Blitz. Sturdy robots with autocannons or, say, shotguns can wait till the suppression wears off, brush it away and keep ripping enemies to shreds.

Using physical shields or Aegis is a solid idea as well. They block the Suppression entirely.

If you don't have a shield, you can still catch these robots before they can suppress you... or just predict when they use the ability and move out of its way. All suppression abilities have significant cooldown times, so if you manage to bait them out you'll have an edge for quite a while.

...but will the enemy allow you to outplay them? Maybe. Maybe not. The fight between you is supposed to be a constant mind game where the wittiest, most persistent pilot wins.

So go ahead. Suppress and win!

Blitz, Rayker and Invader are set for the update 4.3. However, you can already join the test server this weekend and try them out in all their work-in-progress glory!

Comments

SOLVE THESE BUGS IN STEAM VERSION PLEASE /// Trebuchet does not damage a Gareth with many shots (no shield on the front), the shot goes through the body without causing damage, it's a shame /// Glory does not kill, Damage a little, much less than a Dragon of the same level, checked in my Butch, one in each arm and less than 500mts. /// Thanks for the reduction of times on Halloween, but make them permanent! ---- M9T56I STEAM

I'll just leave this here.I could of said this about 2 months ago, but I don't want any hate.You don't have to believe me.Before Pix released the suppression bots, I gave them an idea for a new robot.This robot is named Raider, a small spider bot, with two light slots. It was supposed to be basic enough to cost silver.However, it's special ability called Poison, which it shoots poison missiles out of its back and corrodes its enemies health, was a terrible idea. The special ability, the # of slots, and even the name is similar, unless somebody already came up with the Rayker, which is fine. I'm curious if Pix actually took my idea, but transformed it into something else.

Dahmaan , i agree i want to get strider rayker and invader but i will only be able to get rayker last because i already have components for stryder and invader but just love the look and ability of rayker. please let it cost silver, a lot of silver if you have to but at least silver

NOTE FROM THE PREACHER: We hope you are doing well. Thanks for the changes, it’s always a little hard to adapt to the new environment. FREE membership in the lottery spinner would suffice to help compensate for the high sliver demand now.

This type of suppression bot will again change the gameplay environment if people can access it easily. I do see the need for these with all of the three to four medium weapon slot issues going on. It would help balance the table.

I wonder if this also could become a suppression device like the shield that you could install in a large weapons slot? This would help even better with leveling the field play.

Thanks for the interesting direction this brings to the table.

ALSO...My mom would’ve killed me if my sock drawer was organized like my extra WAR ROBOTS stuff is held! One thing we talk about but I haven’t seen addressed yet is the weapons and extra robot organizer for the extra weapons and robots you collected. The arrangement is very random and hard to find the pieces you are looking for. And if you sell something, it randomizes things again! We all would love an upgrade to the sorting system of our extra stuff. Sort it by type or sort it by level or even give an option to sort it by either or! It’s time for WAR ROBOTS to move to the next level. Better organization of our storage is the foundational place to start! This will also allow us to sell our extra stuff easier for increased silver...since we could see and understand what we have. If you could give a matrix screen to show numbers of each type, etc. that would be awesome, but I know that would require a lot of thought and work.

Thanks in advance! WAR ROBOTS is the best! Let’s keep it and make it more awesome.-Mike

Nathan Fikes, WHAT? If you read it correctly only physical shields and Aegis blocks these effects. The problem is mostly with burst damage set-ups like Haechi or Spectres with Orkans or Shocktrains and these bots will suppress those cause the Haechi does not have a Aegis and the Spectre has no shield.also what the hell do you mean by your weapons are still weapons. They are not weapons if you cant use them (that is what these bots do SUPPRESS.

Nathan Fikes, What is your point? These bots suppress other bots that is totally different than stealth. Stealth makes you semi invisible and suppression is going to either stop an enemy from shooting or negate it totally. Another thing use your spell check because you have some of the worst spelling I have seen. STEALTH-not-STELTH also DUDES-not-DOODS also CLOAKED-not- CLOCKED also if this is what you meant it would be CHASED-not-CHEESED

I am assuming this is the place to write thisThese all seem pretty good, but please, can you make Reyker cost silver, or even gold.It's so damn annoying that all crawlers (Thats just what I call the four legged guys) cost components or actual money if one has that to spend (Like on offers)Invader would be ok, but Reyker is pretty cool looking.The black market is chance and so is the royal so it takes a whileThis isn't a complaint, but a requestment. It would be great to buy Reyker for silver. Also, this is a great game, love itGood day to you

VikingLord960, Lockdown weapons are not wise Choice despite of fact that you do not fight in 1v1 situacion if you kill somebody you have to re-aim and this particulary sucks .. gusts are better at close distance they deal more dmg as sparks and you dont have to re-aim as sparks do with these bots you will fight almost still in knife fights and gusts will increase your survivality especially against crowds

Please return to me after reading this.What about an ability that throws up and an enemy with stun (nothing except walking wont work)?but this ability might be too OP so if you guys think about it. use a bot like Falcon which normally has resistance but not when you activate your ability...

Before you guys expose the weaknesses of our fellow old robots if you looked shields block this effect. Plus if you receive this effect it is not the end of the world, your weapons are still weapons. Kill the dude who put the effect on you first and save your team from more trouble. Overall this idea seems to bring out more shielded robots and knife fighting surprise tactics.

backtothefront, Hmm, seems like pixonic is going for the surprise part of gameplay. That moment a spectre with quad orkans comes screaming down at you, you cannot get away fast enough to even deal damage to that thing. Pixonic adding counters to counters is distancing us from our old friends...

Polemico, Your right Polemico, but you know that stelth prohibits y axis aiming. Lets say a stalker gets launched by a griffin creating a weird orkan pinata cleanup crew situation. Once the stalker activates stealth you can aim at the griffin giving you aim at the stalker. Another thing is that shotgun weapons are nice against those doods. If you can at least aim your weapons in the direction of the cloaked enemy you can get some scratches. If they are as tall as your weapons it is useless to have stealth. Remember that stealth does not negate damage, if you can do splash you can hit the doods. To add on hydras and other homing weapons can remember where the clocked enemy was last so if they stop and activate stealth, your homing weapons mid flight will still target that area. Trebuchet shots can hit split second before stealth. Lockdown may help, mostly the shotgun lockdown. Stealth is mainly for those small robots who don't want to get cheesed by orkan dash weirdos.

I tried blitz, rayker and invader on the last 2 test servers I'm still learning how to use there strengths but so far I like them all and look forward to finding the right weapons for them each to suit my playing style. Thanx pixonic keep them new bots coming.

Dude, You perfectly speak my mind; these yt shills disgust me deeply. Instead of using their ability/position of power and be honest about all the problems we face they pander to their overlords from pix. Sad to see them being so spineless... And there’s always a veritable army of boot lickers praising them in the comment section of their vids - especially if they do one of their infamous ‘giveaways’. And i really have a hard time to understand why the devs don’t fix the many issues instead of releasing one new item after the other; in the end even the pay to win whales will get annoyed by pix’ politics - and then the game will finally die. The whole situation is really sad. If at the very least they would fix the upgrading time and make it possible to level more than one item at a time; this would be already a big improvement...

backtothefront, In case you didn’t know: the HOVER has exactly the same problem; if you aim at an opponent and fly towards him your lock on will most likely fail as soon as you’re in a too steep angle to the enemy - so the problem works both ways. And for this pesky aiming problem: it IS annoying as hell if you - in the worst scenario - get killed by someone you desperately tried to aim at just because another bot was closer to you!! I absolutely agree with this point.

backtothefront, Even if i would’ve preferred you writing in a little more civil language i can understand your frustration - and i feel the same way. Btw: hydras go in the exact same chapter. And your argument that fast bots use these ‘root’-weapons is sadly the reality. Cause those paying for fast high end bots also buy these guns... Concluding: i am not a fan of these three new bots either - which will inevitably end up in the hands of our infamous whales.

Polemico, I don’t think this is a good idea - at least not for this amount of time; you know HOW LONG 10sec are?! You can get killed in one single of them. And some stealth abilities only dure 3sec. So IF this ability would be good at all then only for 3sec. That’s my opinion at least...

One ability is really missing: anti-stealth.Say I push the button and I can aim any one with active stealth for 3 secondsOr I use a special weapon that can inhibit stealth activation on a bot for next 5,10 seconds

The Rayker is gotta be my main bot to get. The rest is boring and trash. Like I said many times, and I could care less it gets annoying. I want my old classic Golem back. I want it's old sand skin and I want the paintjobs on my Classic Golems!

Given the length of time it takes to level anything useful up, I'll stick to getting Specters. Just levelling a few of those and the weapons to go with it will likely take years, so any interest in new shit being tossed out by Prixonic has minimal to zero interest.

Why get the new gear when Specter is still king. Maybe a close second from Pursuer.

Mimikyu94, Man, I dont mean any offense or to be harsh, but pull your head out of your ass. The lovkdown weapons are being used by fast robots on slow robots. Taking a dried up dog turd of an idea and dressing it up as a counter to dash bots, doesn't for dash bots that weapon make. It's just another clusterfuck idea from Pixo that doesn't give a crap about the real use of the weapon and it's fallout. Like the biggest coward weapon there is, the Shocktrain and it's prancing pony to mount it on, the Spectre. That bot is pure unadulterated no skill hack enablement. All you need is money. Period. Any asshole can sit behind a wall and wait for the cooldown on their cloak to coundown so they can jump up, cloaked, and pretty much wipe out any bot that isn't cloaked with one hit.

I'm calling you pilots out. Nothing says bitch like you guys. No skill, just a moronic upperhand from Pixonic.

And I don't want to hear about using the lock...I do. But it is complete bullshit when you have to cycle through the lock in most situations just to lock onto the goddamned bot that's RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. I'm sick of aiming at the ceiling, or the ground. Pixonic you KNOW this an issue yet you do nothing about it. Or maybe it's for certain outspoken players.

Same goes for Hovers. You gave made it a real task ro lock onto those POS's, and I think it's for a reason. When they came out, they were getting dropped like sprayed flies. But you want to sell them, so you make it nearly impossible to get lock on them (neexing to cycle through lock on entire red team TWICE before you get to them, by then they've landed ), or you make it where even of your engaged with the Hover without lock, the target will suddenly go to someone else wjen you are a sliver from the kill. Or if you do hit them it does little damage quite often.

The riches and hang ups in this game are suspect to say the least, when you look at the famtastic detail in all other areas. And in that light, they aren't 'glitches' at all. But purposeful, I'll bet your asses on it.

As a side addendum to your comment, I SERIOUSLY consider the possibility of Pixonic nerfing the accounts of the people that call them out for their practices. I am most positivr they've done it to me, which is so bitch on their part it isn't even funny.

These guys have a good platform...and they are insistent on using their arrogance due to that to unique platform to abuse the player base at large and continually add insipid (tasteless) garbage that just flutters the game with um ending stupidity. Next will be bots that can teleport to easier matches...you know, to help the tankers and other shit heads when these cowardly gimmick releases dont help them do any better.

Does the term sycophant mean anything to you guys. Google it, then take a long look in the mirror. Pixonic will continue to screw you guys, unlubed, until they squeeze every last cent from you. They will end up making these things out of balance just like the shocktrain, t get people to impulse spend and attempt to get stronger, but it will not do you a bit of good, because it will be nerfed as soon as interest drops off. As long as gameplay issues aren't addressed, none of the new shiny things will make this game better. Manni is a sellout. I liked the dude, but he has partaken of the kool-aid, or been paid off for his own sycophantic behavior. I can't stand to see a person who would so easily sell his support. Weak of character comes to mind when I think of him and all the media tramps that cheerlead for Pixo. How about keeping your balls, be an honest media personality, and tell the truth of the game, by highlighting the real problems that should be put in the forefront of all conversations about this game. There are weapons with targeting and firing issues that have not been addressed for over a year, the tanking issue has been present and not addressed in any real way since the the league system began, and how about the lack of communication that has been promised forever and not delivered on. It was a new years resolution of Pixo's. Of course it was another broken promise, just like so many others. Am I excited about these new bots and weapons? Well...no. Why would any realistic honest player be? Just another waste of money. How long do you idiots think it will take you to obtain all the components, then upgrade it to a decent fighting level? It's just another in a long line of things that add to the confusion of the game, and reasons for the developer to ignore the important problems in this game. They will never devote the programming resources to make this game right, as long as players like you guys and the media idgits keep cheering this crap along.

Whoever is creating these new stuff is really good at observing the current events of the game. The dash bots are now countered by Lock-down weapons, the Spectre is now countered by the Falcon, and everything else that is fighting at point-blank range are finally countered by the Suppression bots.

With these Suppressing robots, I could put them on with Lockdown weps and Insta-kill combo! And then, BAM!! Sorry! Time's up, you're dead! But if I'm facing them, I would just grab my Shotgun Spectre and bash their face!

Instead of new robots every other week, that no one can updatewithout opening their wallet side, how about fixing your matchmaking. You've ruined this one great game and Destroyed clans. Turned from a great game to money hungry scoundrels that treat their players like shit. Always taking away our choice and chances to earn gold and silver. What a waste

I played the last test server and these BOTS are good but not any more op than the spectre. BUT we couldn't use lock down weapons on the last test. My issue with these BOTS is what happens when you get suppressed and locked down together. You can't defend your self or run for cover. Work shop 2.0 is great but we really need to work on the ECONEMY it's a disaster.

You should make a new gameplay (maybe skirmish) where each member is randomly assigned a specific role in the round - like one must be a long-range shooter (sniper), or a short-range shooter, mid-range shooter, a healer (like mender or weyland), a suppressor (like the new bots above), a beacon-catcher dash bot (like kumiho), etc.

I think that would allow teams to be more diverse, afford these bots more room to be involved and encourage better TEAM play.